More than £6 billion was wiped off the London stock market’s energy and water sector after National Grid unveiled plans for one of the largest fundraisings in more than a decade and amid fears that an election will delay energy policy decisions. The near-£7 billion rights issue would be the largest from a company in…

Profits for one of the world’s largest traders of oil and metals have tumbled by two thirds, highlighting the easing in the extreme commodity price volatility that has raged over the past three years. Trafigura said calmer energy markets had caused its net profit to fall to $1.5 billion during the six months to the…

Ministers have provisionally agreed to a power pricing framework that could pave the way for more pumped storage hydroelectricity projects in Britain, including a gigantic £1.5 billion scheme from SSE that is starting to take shape in the Scottish Highlands. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said it intended to develop a “cap…

The risk of blackouts in Britain will be lower this winter as new gas generation capacity and greater electricity imports from Europe should ensure a larger buffer against potential shortages. Electricity supply margins are expected to increase to 9.4 per cent this winter, up from 7.4 per cent last year, under the “base case” scenario…

The forcible imposition by British Gas of prepayment meters upon highly vulnerable customers — exposed by an undercover Times investigation in February this year — was widely acknowledged as a scandal. Grant Shapps, then energy secretary, dubbed it “abhorrent”. Chris O’Shea, the chief executive of Centrica, which owns British Gas, expressed “horror” at the “completely…

Ministers have fired the starting gun on £6.5 billion of investment projects in ports, shipbuilding and manufacturing that could create thousands of jobs in Scotland’s offshore wind industry. Huge infrastructure upgrades and new facilities are needed at locations around the country to support the building and assembly of equipment required for the ScotWind developments. The…

Businesses intend to lift both wages and prices by a lesser degree over the coming year, bolstering the case for interest rates to come down over the summer. Companies surveyed by the Bank of England last month said they planned to increase pay by an average of 4.1 per cent, down from a forecast of…

The risk of winter blackouts has fallen this year but Britain may still need to rely on paying millions of households to use less electricity if imports from Europe are disrupted, National Grid has said. The company responsible for keeping the lights on expressed “cautious optimism” about the outlook for power supplies this winter and…

Shell has sold its remaining chemical assets in Singapore in the latest attempt to simplify operations and sell-off less profitable parts of the business. Glencore, the commodities group, and Chandra Asri, an Indonesian chemicals company, will take on the physical assets and commercial contracts for the refining and chemicals assets at Pulau Bukom and Jurong…